


Identity Crisis

by hathycol



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Civil War (Marvel), Civil War speculation, Gen, Gen Work, No Spoilers, Not Canon Compliant, Pep Talk, going to be jossed in about a month, why is there not more scott lang fic anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 23:26:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6446449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hathycol/pseuds/hathycol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint isn't sure why he keeps having to give these pep talks, given he's the least super-powered of them all.</p><p>A short piece written in advance of Civil War being released.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Identity Crisis

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this percolating in my head since I saw the first trailers with Ant-Man in them for Civil War. I was having a rubbish day and needed a bit of a pep talk myself, so sat down and wrote the whole thing in one blast. A couple of edits later, and voila.
> 
> I am thoroughly aware this won't be canon but hey, for a whole month I can dream. This fic takes place just before the airport scene that's heavily featured in the trailer. It's probably not even Berlin, but that's the only German city I've been to and can write about.
> 
> Edit to notes, post movie viewing: well, it's definitely not canon but weirdly it has ended up being in the spirit of canon. Clint and his pep talks. And hey! I was right about Berlin!

“I’m not in the right place,” said Scott suddenly. “I’m a guy with a suit who talks to ants. I’m a criminal. Baskin Robbins doesn’t even want me.”

It was nights like this, Clint reflected, that he really shouldn’t have taken up Dr Cho’s offer of cochlear implants. He wouldn’t have had to hear this. Instead, he sighed and pulled himself into a sitting position. There were just four of them in the Berlin apartment, Scott keeping watch while Sam and Wanda slept in separate rooms, Clint on the sofa. Sam had the soldier’s ability to sleep through anything, it seemed, whilst Wanda had to sleep in a separate room for the safety of those around her while she dreamed. Steve and the Wint… _Barnes_ were out doing god knows what.

So it was Clint who heard Scott’s muttered plea to the night sky. “Look,” Clint said in the darkness. Scott started and turned around from where he’d been sat at the window, peering out into the German darkness, Potsdamer Platz lights blinking in the night. “Scott. Yes, you’re just a guy. But you’re a guy with a hell of a suit that stepped up to help. That’s important.”

“Yeah, but...” Scott looked wretched in the dark. “I was glad to help Captain America get his friend out of that weird vise he’d been left in. Engineering, that I can do. I’m just not sure how I got dragged into this superhero business. I can’t fight Iron Man. _That’s_ a guy with a suit who knows what he’s doing.”

At least, Clint reflected, this conversation wasn’t taking place under fire from a killer robot apocalypse. It was important to try and find the positive in these situations. “Firstly, they’re just Steve and Tony. Yes, they’re having a disagreement right now, but they’re still just… guys, you know? None of us are actually superheroes with capes like Superman.”

“The Vision has a cape,” Scott pointed out.

“Yeah, OK, you might have a point there,” said Clint. He gave into the inevitable and stood up from the sofa, blanket puddling on the floor as it slipped off him. He padded over the open plan apartment to the coffee machine to put on a pot and leaned back against the kitchen counter. It couldn’t have been more than 4am, although they’d hardly been in Europe long enough to adapt to the time difference. “Look, the Vision, granted, he's different. All of us involved in this, though, we're just people."

“There is a girl sleeping in the room next door who can literally move things with her brain and fly,” said Scott, coming over to the small kitchenette. He still kept an eye on the window though, and Clint briefly wondered how many tiny helpers were observing the building on Scott’s behalf. “She is definitely not just an ordinary girl.”

“She’s called Wanda,” said Clint simply. “She really likes waffles, she cries at telenovas with no trace of irony and yes, she can move things with just her brain. She was a little girl who who had a shitty experience, and got into the wrong hands. I had this conversation with her once, too.” Scott raised an eyebrow as the coffee pot beeped. "Yes, really," Clint continued. "There were robots. It wasn't great. This at least has coffee." Clint picked up the pot and added cream directly in, stirring with a finger.

“Um, I prefer it black?” Scott said, sounding faintly horrified. 

“Good for you,” Clint said, and took a healthy swig directly from the pot. “Make your own. If you want to have an identity crisis I’m doing it caffeinated.”

“All hail the amazing Hawkeye,” Scott muttered.

“No, see, you can stop that right now,” Clint said and pointed at Scott with the hand not holding the coffee pot. “The amazing Hawkeye? I’m an ex-carnie who got into SHIELD straight out of the army which I got into straight out of juvie. Hawkeye was my codename. I shoot people with a bow and arrow for a living. You need to ignore the action figure stuff. Trust me, we are all just people who are very good at some limited, weird stuff. Steve was a skinny kid from Brooklyn with asthma, not Captain America. The Black Widow..." He stuttered for a moment. Thinking about Natasha was painful. "She was a colleague. We had ugly sweater holiday parties together. We’re all just people, doing what we have to do. Yeah, you’re just an ex-con with a suit and some ants, but you’re really, really good with that suit.”

“Tony Stark is a billionaire with a suit. He’s actually exceptional. Maybe we should be on his side and not trying… whatever this is that we’re doing.”

“Ok, firstly, you also have ants, which is a lot more niche than being a billionaire. As for him being on right side?" Clint thought on it for a second, the thoughts he'd been sitting on for time still not quite coalescing together. "Tony… thinks he’s right. I don’t know, maybe he is. Steve asked for my help first, there’s not much more to it than that. And yeah, he’s a billionaire, but he’s also a jackass quite a lot of the time. He was never Batman. Guys like us, we do what we have to and that’s more than a lot of people do. You want anything deeper than that, you need to talk to Sam. He’s trained for this.”

At this, Scott actually smiled. “I beat him in a fight once. Did I tell you that?”

“You’ve told us all several times,” Clint assured him. “One day it'll stop making Steve laugh.”

The door to Wanda’s room opened and they both tensed briefly. Things moving around a sleeping Wanda could occasionally mean trouble. They both relaxed as she walked out of the room, stretching. “I thought I would never adapt to American time but here I am, exhausted in Germany,” she said. “Are you making coffee?”

“Scott is,” said Clint easily, and took another swig out of his own pot. Scott sighed and grabbed another pot out of the cupboard as Wanda sat down at one of the stools on the breakfast bar.

“So,” Wanda said brightly. “Who is having the identity crisis now?”

“Me,” said Scott sheepishly.

“Clint is very good at these,” she reassured him. “He helped me. He doesn’t know it, but he helped my brother too.” It was good, Clint thought, that she could speak about him without things rattling on nearby surfaces. That had taken time. “I think it’s because he’s a father, he’s got used to looking after the confidence of those around him. Perhaps he still remembers the fear. Don’t worry Scott, you’ll learn this with Cassie too," she added before a jaw-cracking yawn. There was silence for a moment before Clint and Scott both started talking about the same time.

“Wanda, I haven’t spoken about-“ 

“-how do you know her name, I haven’t even-“

Wanda raised her hands, looking genuinely distressed, exhaustion gone. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. It was at the front of your minds, both of you. I… I am tired, more so than I realised. I thought you’d spoken of this to each other, that was what I overheard.”

“Well, damage is done now,” said Clint with a deep sigh. He turned to Scott. “I have three. Youngest one is just coming up a year old. I fight to keep them safe. You?”

“Cassie,” replied Scott. “She’s eight this year. She makes me want to be better than I am. Going against the law like this wasn’t the plan but… I don’t know, maybe I can help anyway. Make her proud.”

“Eh, when do plans ever go right?” said Clint with a grin. He turned to Wanda, who still looked shaken. “Tell you what, kid. Next time someone has a crisis, I’m sending them straight to you. You deal with the things we’re not talking about, I’ll get some sleep, everyone stops criticising my coffee. I’ll go and wake up Sam, it’ll be light soon.”

\--

Steve and Barnes returned as the dawn was breaking. Barnes looked like hell, although Clint wasn't sure if that was what the guy normally looked like, given they'd only met two days previously. "We need to move," said Steve without ceremony. "War Machine is flying in with the Widow, they'll be here in two hours."

"I can get us out if we can get to an airfield," Scott said instantly. "Tiny helpers are useful for that."

"Good," said Steve, nodding at him. "Everyone, get kitted up and then we're taking Lang's lead on this. We have five minutes."

Clint patted Scott on the shoulder, just the once, as he headed over to grab his bowcase. He saw Wanda smiling. There was a chance they would make it out of this in one piece, he thought.

Later on, much later, he thought back to that moment of confidence and shuddered.


End file.
